Haiti earthquake - Chris' message

[nancyk58]

Subject: Time for deadbeat donors to pay up!

Hi,

In the months after Haiti’s earthquake pledges of aid came from all over the world – totalling more than $5 billion USD.

However 6 months on, only 10% of this aid has actually been delivered to Haiti – compromising the country’s ability to rebuild and prepare for the upcoming hurricane season.

President Bill Clinton, UN special envoy to Haiti, has vowed to chase the countries with outstanding pledges, and we’d like to show him the world supports his efforts.

I just signed a petition asking world leaders to deliver the aid they pledged to Haiti as soon as possible.

Please join me by signing the petition here:

http://one.org/international/actnow/...=haitiaidpaste

Together as ONE we can make a difference!

Thanks!

NANCY aka. nancyk58

[nancyk58]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10888173 / 6 August 2010/ Last updated at 11:09 GMT

WYCLEF JEAN FILES PAPERS TO STAND FOR HAITI PRESIDENT

Hip hop star Wyclef Jean spoke about his presidential ambitions in his native Haiti.

Hip hop star Wyclef Jean has formally registered to stand for president of his native Haiti as it rebuilds after the devastating January earthquake.

Dozens of supporters greeted him as he arrived with his wife and daughter at an electoral council office in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The deadline to file candidacy papers for the 28 November poll is Saturday.
Mr Jean, who lives in the US, will now have to prove he is eligible to run under Haitian law.

A review board will verify that his candidacy meets constitutional requirements, including having lived in Haiti for five consecutive years leading up to the election and never having held foreign citizenship.

The singer, who grew up in the US, holds a Haitian passport and has US residency. He says his appointment as a roving ambassador for the country in 2007 exempts him from the residency requirement.

The list of official candidates will be published on 17 August.

'VERY EMOTIONAL'

Mr Jean filed papers to run as a candidate for the Viv Ansanm (Live Together) political party.

"I would like to tell [US] President Barack Obama that the United States has Obama and Haiti has Wyclef Jean," he told a rally of supporters in Port-au-Prince.

"It's a moment in time and in history," he told the Associated Press news agency. "It's very emotional."

Earlier this week, he stepped down from the Yele Haiti charitable foundation for Haitian children he set up, which recently came under scrutiny over its finances.

Other declared candidates include former diplomat Garaudy Laguerre and Raymond Joseph, who is Haiti's current ambassador to the US and Mr Jean's uncle.

The sitting President, Rene Preval, is barred by the constitution from seeking a new term.

If Mr Jean runs and wins, he will preside over the spending of billions of dollars in reconstruction aid.

Mr Jean, the frontman of 1990s hip hop group The Fugees, is hugely popular in Haiti, where half of the population is under 21.

He told Time magazine in an interview that his secret weapon in the election campaign would be that Haiti's "enormous youth population doesn't believe in politicians any more".

"If not for the earthquake, I probably would have waited another 10 years before doing this," Mr Jean added.

Mr Jean is Haiti's ambassador-at-large, and has played a prominent role in
securing aid since the earthquake, which left 1.5 million people homeless.
----------------------------

Danish DR1: WYCLEF OFFICIAL PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN HAITI

Swedish SVT: WYCLEF GREETED AS HERO IN hAITI BY MANY SUPPORTERS

Older citizens were more sceptical. Wyclef Jean grew up in New York, but was born on Haiti.

After the devastating earthquake on 12 January, 2010 that killed more than 300,000 Haitians, Wyclef Jean participated in the rescue operation in person / on site in Haiti. And he has collected money for Haiti Relief Fund.

He was appointed goodwill ambassador for Haiti in 2007 by the present president, Réné Préval who - according to the constitution - must resign when his presidency expires.

The presidential election in Haiti is planned to be held on 28 November 2010.

[nancyk58]

Danish DR1 TV had an on-the-spot report from HAITI on 19 August 2010:

The HAITI donations made by the state of Denmark and by Danish individuals went to 9 aid agencies including SOS Children's Villages. The children staying in the SOS Children's Village visited by Danish television are lucky. They get food once every day.


Urban, Danish free paper / CNN's website: WYCLEF JEAN's CANDIDACY IN DANGER
The rapper WYCLEF JEAN known from the group The Fugees, may be prevented from running for President of HAITI. Haiti's election committee is to decide whether the rapper who was born in the USA can run for president of HAITI as he does not live in HAITI. Wyclef Jean's lawyer says that Wyclef Jean is entitled to run for President as the musician has paid taxes in HAITI for at least five years.

[nancyk58]

20.8.10: Anonymous member of the provisional election committee to the news agency Reuters: WYCLEF JEAN's name does NOT appear on the list of candidates who have been approved to run for president in HAITI


THE HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE: AN UPDATE

With an estimated 50,000-100,000 DEAD, 300,000 HOMELESS, and 3 MILLION NEEDING HELP in some form, it's clear that the Haitian earthquake was a disaster that demands long-term support for recovery. But despite the fact that it has been over 7 months since the earthquake struck, Haiti continues to face numerous obstacles to recovery.

One major issue Haitian women specifically have been facing is the rise of gender-based violence in refugee camps and other vulnerable areas.

A recent New York Times article, "Sexual Assaults Add to Miseries of Haiti's Ruins" by Deborah Sontag, outlined the desperate need for training peacekeepers, humanitarian aid staff, local law enforcement and social workers to prevent gender-based violence. Currently, there is neither an adequate system for documentation of these claims, nor judicial capacity to handle sexual violence reports. And because there is inadequate accounting for gender roles in humanitarian operations, for example, women are increasingly resorting to transactional sex in response to the distribution of food tickets to men. At one camp, UN official Nancy Dorsinville asserted, every single woman screened for HIV tested positive. (See Linda Basch's NY Times Letter to the Editor.)

An immediate solution to this problem according to Julie Sell of the American Red Cross, aside from the training of officials, is allocating some of the promised $5.5 billion in aid from international governments to transitional housing. Much of the violence against women occurring in Haiti stems from the massive numbers of people being forced to live together on the streets and in tent camps and their lack of protection or shelter; a problem that more substantial housing would work to dispel. However, due to issues such as recent flooding, debris left over from the earthquake, and legal land issues, the people of Haiti, especially Haitian women and girls, remain unprotected.

However, there are many concerned parties currently addressing the crisis. LERN (Lawyers Earthquake Response Network) is, "a national network of lawyers in the U.S. working with Haitian lawyers to implement a legal response to the earthquake in Haiti." LERN has been fighting for safe housing in addition to more effective international assistance and has been seeking immigration opportunities for the displaced. On the gender front, they launched RAPP (Rape Accountability and Prevention Project), which works on structural and responsive levels to address violence against women in the wake of the earthquake. In addition, Haitian women themselves are fighting back against the violence. According to the Ms. Foundation for Women, who issued grants to four organizations working in the region, women in Haiti are organizing to combat violence by distributing rape whistles and are training for non-traditional jobs as a way of lifting themselves and their families out of poverty.

Though the situation may still seem dire, with the dedication of organizations such as LERN and the incredible courage and determination of the Haitian people, it seems as though there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.
------------------

*Julie Zeilinger, current Communications intern with the National Council for Research on Women, is the founder and editor of The FBomb, a blog and community for teenage feminists. She is a senior at the Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio.

[nancyk58]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/11010908 / Page last updated at 10:01 GMT, Wednesday, 18 August 2010 11:01 UK

By Greg Cochrane, Newsbeat music reporter

WYCLEF 'DEATH THREATS' AS HAITI PRESIDENT BID DELAYED

Singer Wyclef Jean says he is in "hiding" after receiving death threats since announcing his plans to run for president of Haiti.

Jean told The Associated Press he had received a series of warnings, including a phone call telling him to "get out of Haiti".

The singer's plans have stirred controversy in the Caribbean country with his ex-bandmate Pras Michel and actor Sean Penn among those criticising his bid.

Haiti's electoral commission has also postponed its ruling on who will be allowed to run for president until 20 August.

DELAYED ANNOUNCEMENT

The commission have said they need more time to consider the applications of those who want to run.

There is a question mark over whether Jean qualifies to run for president under Haitian laws which stipulate a candidate must have lived in the country for five consecutive years. Jean has not.

Before the deadline on 8 August, more than 30 people had filed to run for president of the country.

Haiti is still struggling to recover from January's earthquake which left over 250,000 dead.

Since officially announcing his intentions Wyclef's bid has been criticised by his ex-Fugees bandmate Pras Michel.

He said: "I want to make it unequivocally clear I love Wyclef to def [sic] but he's not [qualified] to be the leader of the new Haiti.

"Wyclef's patriotism for Haiti is unwavering but still isn't suited to prez [sic] of new Haiti!"

Haiti's presidential elections are due to take place on 28 November 2010.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11053604 / 22 August 2010 Last updated at 16:57 GMT

WYCLEF JEAN TO APPEAL AGAINST HAITI ELECTION RULING

Haitian hip-hop star Wyclef Jean has said he will appeal against a ruling that he cannot run in Haiti's presidential election.

Haiti's electoral commission said that Mr Jean was ineligible to stand as the Haitian constitution requires candidates to have lived in the country for five years prior to an election.

The 40-year-old singer lives in the US.

But he argues that his role as a ROVING AMBASSADOR FOR HAITI since 2007 exempts him from the residency requirement.

The country is still recovering from January's earthquake, which killed an estimated 230,000 people and left more than one million homeless.

Following the ruling on Friday, Mr Jean issued a statement saying he respectfully disagreed with the electoral panel's decision, but accepted it and urged his supporters to do the same.

However, on Sunday Mr Jean told reporters that he was refusing to give up and that he would challenge the decision in court.

Speaking to the Associated Press news agency from his house in the Haitian town of Croix des Bouquet, Mr Jean said he had documentation about his candidacy "which shows everything is correct" and that he and his aides "feel that what is going on here has everything to do with Haitian politics".

In a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter, Mr Jean said: "Tomorrow our lawyers are appealing the decision of the CEP. We have met all the requirements set by the laws. And the law must be respected."

[nancyk58]

$47m FOR STARVING EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS IN HAITI

[nancyk58]

Danish DR1 (Danish radio & television) has revisited HAITI:

DR1's HAITI VERDICT: THE HAITI RECONSTRUCTION IS TOO SLOW

Haiti's capital 8 months after the devastation earthquake: Tents are still standing close in Port-au-Prince.

The customs authorities are delaying the relief work: It takes too long time to get the licenses needed to import the aid!

[nancyk58]

LATEST NEWS IN RELATION TO HAITI - 25.9.10


Danish DR1: AT LEAST 5 KILLED IN REFUGEE CAMPS IN HAITI BY STORMY WEATHER

At least 5 people were killed in the refugee camps established after the devastating earthquake in HAITI in January 2010. Capital PORT-AU-PRINCE was directly hit by the bad weather. The winds were so strong that house roofs blew off and trees were uprooted and electricity poles were destroyed.

Winds destroyed and damaged many tents in the refugee camps on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Several hundreds are ready to be evacuated.


Swedish SVT: EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS IN HAITI - BEING WITHOUT PROTECTION - HIT BY BAD WEATHER: 5 DIED

8 months after the devastating earthquake in HAITI, ten thousands of Haitians are still living in simple tents - not adequately protected against bad weather. A STORM swept (over) Port-au-Prince and COST 5 HUMAN LIVES.

At a big tent camp at a large square outside the presidential palace that was ravaged in the quake ANGRY PROTESTS AGAINST THE AUTHORITIES BROKE OUT. An official: "We could not enter that camp to assess the damage. People are angry."

This storm is not the same as the storms ravaging in the ATLANTIC and CENTRAL AMERICA.

[nancyk58]

NEWS IN RELATION TO HAITI ON 7 OCTOBER 2010


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11491537 / 7 October 2010 Last updated at 13:45 GMT

UN CONDEMNED OVER 'APPALLING' HAITI EARTHQUAKE CAMPS

UN AGENCIES in charge of refugee camps for victims of Haiti's earthquake are INEXPERIENCED and DYSFUNCTIONAL, the US charity Refugees International says.

The groups says reports of GANG RAPES are common, and a LACK OF TRANSLATORS means UN police cannot do their job.

A UN spokeswoman told the BBC that the organisation was doing its best, but said the scale of the disaster made their job very difficult.

More than a million people were left homeless by the quake.

Former US President Bill Clinton, who has been visiting a camp, has vowed that US aid long promised to Haiti but yet to materialise will soon be released.

NO PROTECTION

Refugees International, in its report titled Haiti: Still Trapped in the Emergency Phase, said the people of Haiti were "still living in a state of EMERGENCY, with a humanitarian response that appears paralysed".

"Living in squalid, overcrowded camps for a prolonged period has led to aggravated levels of violence and appalling standards of living," the report says.

Despite these alarming conditions, the UN co-ordination system in Haiti is not prioritising activities to protect people's rights."

The group's spokeswoman Melanie Teff, who took part in a recent fact-finding trip to Haiti, told the BBC that MANY OF THE CAMPS HAD NO POLICE PRESENCE.

"I spoke with women's groups, who told me of women being forced to exchange
SEX FOR FOOD because they were so desperate, in order to support their families," Ms Teff said.

She said reports of GANG RAPE were common, and in some camps, the security committees were run by members of the local gang.

But the UN's Imogen Wall defended the organisation, saying the camps were relatively peaceful places, and that the UN had doubled the numbers of police since September.

"We've had very, very few security incidents in the camps," she said.

"People do expect the UN to solve everything, but we have deep and endemic problems here that need very long-term and committed solutions."

She said many of the problems Haiti faced - including HIGH RATES OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE - had plagued the Caribbean nation before the quake, and had little connection to the refugee camps.

But she said the priority for the UN was to get the people out of the camps.

Meanwhile, Mr Clinton, who co-chairs the UN commission overseeing Haiti's reconstruction, heard the concerns of Haitians on Wednesday as he toured a large camp in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Mr Clinton's foundation PLEDGED $500,000 (£313,000) to help the camp, which is located on a former golf course.

The former US president spoke of his FRUSTRATION about the slow arrival of funding - with the US still to deliver on any of the $1.15bn of aid promised at a donors' conference in March.

"In the next day or so, it will become obvious that the United States is making a huge downpayment on that," Mr Clinton said, without elaborating.

The former president said that the money was being held up by a "rather bizarre system of rules" in the US Senate.


ANALYSIS

Mark Doyle, BBC international development correspondent
________________________________________

The most striking thing about this report from an independent aid agency is its UTTER CONDEMNATION OF THE MANAGEMENT OF THE CRISIS BY THE UNITED NATIONS.

It says the UN body charged with protecting people's basic rights in the camps, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, lacks experience in coping with disasters, is UNDERSTAFFED and DYSFUNCTIONAL.

It says UN police officers don't patrol the camps consistently and, almost incredibly, that what UN patrols there are do not have translators, so cannot communicate with camp residents.

Refugees International says there should be much more involvement in managing the camps by LOCAL HAITIAN CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS who understand the situation - but the report points out that none of the UN meetings about camp management is held in the local language, Creole.

AND THEN ANOTHER HAITI ARTICLE UPDATED 4.10.10:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11472874 / 4 October 2010 Last updated at 23:06 GMT

US URGED TO STOP HAITI RICE SUBSIDIES

By Mark Doyle, BBC international development correspondent

A leading aid agency has called on the United States to STOP SUBSIDISING AMERICAN RICE EXPORTS TO HAITI, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, because it says the POLICY UNDERMINES LOCAL PRODUCTION OF FOOD.

Former US President Bill Clinton, one of the architects of the subsidies to US farmers - and who is now, paradoxically, the co-chair of Haiti's earthquake recovery Commission - is quoted by Oxfam as saying that the policy was "a mistake".

"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked," said Mr Clinton, a frequent visitor to Haiti.

"I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did."

The aid agency says the $434m (£274m) paid annually in DOMESTIC US RICE SUBSIDIES is MORE THAN the TOTAL US AID TO HAITI of $353m.

The Oxfam report said subsidies paid to American farmers meant the rice they export to Haiti - known locally as Riz Miami or "Miami Rice" - is cheaper than locally produced rice.

The foreign rice that is "dumped" in Haiti therefore exacerbates the rural-urban drift that has seen the population of the capital PORT-AU-PRINCE balloon out of control as farmers who cannot feed themselves move to the city in search of employment.

The city was built in colonial times to house a FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE.

But it now has a POPULATION of an estimated THREE MILLION - most living in badly-constructed blocks which crumbled in January's devastating earthquake, making at least A MILLION PEOPLE HOMELESS.

MORE THAN 230,000 PEOPLE were KILLED in the 7.0 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE, which was centred near Port-au-Prince.

RURAL IMPACT

HAITI was encouraged by western countries to LIBERALISE ITS ECONOMY IN 1994. As it CUT TAXES ON IMPORTS its OWN RICE PRODUCTION plummeted (FELL DRASTICALLY).

In 1980, according to OXFAM, HAITI was VIRTUALLY SELF SUFFICIENT IN RICE. But TODAY it IMPORTS some 80% of its RICE and 60% of its OVERALL FOOD SUPPLY.

"Trade liberalisation has exposed Haitian farmers to competition from subsidised US rice and made consumers vulnerable to volatile global food prices," said OXFAM.

The report says FOOD AID can be another side to this problem.

In the month following the earthquake, for example, there was an INTERNATIONAL FOOD AID "SURGE".

Although OXFAM says the aid was "unquestionably a necessity" because it reduced food prices and allowed people to eat, the price reductions also "negatively affected rural Haitians" who earn money from selling food to the cities and comprise the majority of the population.

The agency recommended that, wherever possible, food aid should be bought in local markets inside the country that is receiving the aid.
OXFAM also made numerous recommendations to the Haitian government aimed at reversing its historic bias favouring the elites in Port-au-Prince over the majority rural poor.

It said the government should:

• decentralise services away from the capital

• ensure that farmers have access to credit

• improve a land tenure system where most farmers have tiny parcels of land known as mouchwa - after the Creole word meaning "handkerchief-sized" - which they can be cheated out of by judges who award title to "whoever offers the biggest bribe".

The situation that Oxfam highlights is part of the bizarre relationship Haiti has with development aid donors and humanitarian workers.

PORT-AU-PRINCE is one of the AID CAPITALS of the WORLD.

By some estimates there are over 8,000 development charities working in the city - and almost every four-wheel drive vehicle you see on the streets there has the logo of an aid agency on its doors.

Yet the country remains mired in POVERTY. And many Haitians see the aid agencies primarily as sources of employment rather than as organisations that are making a difference in the long run.

[nancyk58]

NEWS IN RELATION TO HAITI OCTOBER 2010

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53174

Haiti's 1.3 Million Camp Dwellers Waiting in Vain
By Correspondents*

GRAND GOÂVE, Oct 15, 2010 (IPS/Haiti Grassroots Watch) - Rosie Benjamin is just one of over 1.3 million people living in Haiti's 1,354 squalid refugee camps. She and 1,200 others are jammed into 300 tents and plastic tarp-shacks on a soccer field in Grand Goâve.

Like about 70 percent of Haiti's refugee camps, the residents here are on their own. Apart from water deliveries, they get nothing from the government and the massive humanitarian apparatus on the ground. No food. No jobs. And no news about their future.

"We went to City Hall, we didn't learn anything. We went to Terre des Hommes, nothing," Banjamin said. "So far we haven't gotten anything. Nothing. We are sitting here and we have no idea what anyone is thinking."

Benjamin and her neighbours live on money from relatives overseas, share what food they have, and every now and then a non-governmental organisation (NGO) drops off some bulgar wheat and vegetable oil, but that's about it. Some of the children – many of whom will likely not go to school this year – even have orange-tinted hair.

Asked about that obvious sign of malnutrition and other conditions, Deborah Hyde, a member of the U.N. "Shelter Cluster" – a U.N.-mandated management team tasked with trying to coordinate the NGOs working on the shelter issue – said that in March, most food distributions stopped because, she said, the Haitian government requested that the NGOs cease the handouts. Besides, she added, "[M]alnutrition is unfortunately something that has been here since the 1980s."

Hyde said that she felt some camp residents actually had a place to live, or could find one. Instead, they stay because, she said, "to be perfectly frank, are afraid they will miss a [food or aid] distribution."

But Benjamin and her neighbours say nothing could be further from the truth. Some camp residents are homeowners but they do not have the means to destroy their hulk of a home, truck away the rubble, and rebuild. Others are renters. Benjamin, like almost two-thirds of Haiti's homeless, rented her home. That means that she can't move her family back home until her landlord makes repairs. Benjamin said nobody is in her camp by choice. And no wonder - recent reports document increasing expulsions, gang activity and sexual exploitation, unsanitary conditions and putrid, inadequate latrines.

And so, despite the massive flow of donations – from citizens and governments – to humanitarian agencies, nine months after the catastrophic earthquake which killed some 300,000 people and devastated the capital and other major cities, most of Haiti's "internally displaced people" are exactly where they were on Jan. 13: crammed into cardboard, canvas and plastic shantytowns, exposed to hot sun and to the frequent downpours and storms of Haiti's infamous "rainy season".

Last month, a storm touched down in the capital Port-au- Prince, killing six people and destroying 8,000 tents.

The apparent stagnation of resettlement efforts has led camp residents like Benjamin to assume there is no plan for the internal refugees.

But there is.

A three-week investigation by a new "reconstruction watch" effort, Ayiti Kale Je/Haiti Grassroots Watch, unearthed one. Unfortunately for Benjamin and her neighbours, however, it is a plan that is unlikely to succeed.

Crafted by U.N. agencies and the NGOs, the plan has three options:

• Return homeless to their neighbourhoods of origin, but into better-built and better-zoned houses;

• Convince some to move to the countryside;

• Put the rest in new housing developments on new land.

On paper – Haiti Grassroots Watch obtained the Oct. 5 draft of the "Strategy of Return and Resettlement", translated from French – the plan seems sound. Put families into safe "transitional shelters" or T-Shelters – wooden or plastic houses – while more permanent, earthquake-safe structures go up in properly planned rebuilt or new neighbourhoods.

But there are many challenges, including the fact that so far, the government hasn't officially bought into it.

Shelter Cluster Coordinator Gehard Tauscher said the lack of coordination and participation at the national level is a real roadblock, noting he wished "all layers of the government would come together and speak with one voice."

"I wish they would lock up all of the people in a nice place for a weekend – the U.N., the agency people and the national government – and not let them out until they make decisions," he said.

There are so many other obstacles, almost every step of the plan appears difficult, if not nearly impossible, to implement.

Take the T-Shelters, for example. First of all, there are over 300,000 families who need safe shelters. The agencies and NGOs are planning to build only 135,000. What about the other 165,000 families? And where will the shelters be put?

That's not an insurmountable challenge. NGOs can try to negotiate leases for families like Benjamin's. But but who will pay the lease?

That leads to another - Haiti's "land problem".

Haiti's land tenure system is "a bordello… a complete disorder that has been going on for 200 years," according to Bernard Etheart, director of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform.

Ever since Haiti's independence, dictators have stolen, sold or given land to their families and allies. Many "owners" do not have titles to prove their ownership, while some parcels have two or three "owners", all with "legal" papers.

Added to the land issue is another roadblock – quite literally. There are an estimated 20 to 30 million cubic tonnes of rubble around the capital and Haiti's smaller affected cities that experts say will take years to clear.

In its three-article series, Haiti Grassroots Watch ran through the plan and pointed out the challenges, concluding that the problem of Haiti's 1.3 million homeless can't be dealt with until the underlying structural issues are tackled.

Dr. Paul Farmer, the U.N. Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti and also co-founder of Partners in Health, put it this way: "[W]hat happened on Jan. 12 is aptly described as an 'acute- on-chronic' event."

Sanon Renel of FRAKKA, the Front for Reflection and Action on the Housing Issue, a coalition of camp committees and human rights groups that advocates for the right to housing, echoed Farmer.

"The NGOs don't have a solution to the country's problems. We need more than a short-term solution. We need another kind of state - a state that serves the majority," he said.

In the meantime, camp dwellers are getting impatient. Benjamin's neighbour, 21-year-old Marie Lucie Martel, said she was tired of seeing the NGOs "making tonnes of money, driving expensive rental cars".

"I have a message for the government and all the NGOs. If they don't take care of us, we will revolt. They won't be able to drive down this highway. They will call us violent – they will call us all kinds of names. But we are being forced to do this, because 'hungry dogs don't play around'," she warned.

*Read the complete series, see accompanying videos and listen to audio podcasts at Haiti Grassroots Watch – http://www.haitigrassrootswatch.org. Ayiti Kale Je (Haiti Eyes Peeled, in Creole), Haiti Grassroots Watch in English and Haïti Veedor (Haiti Watcher in Spanish), is a collaboration of two well-known Haitian grassroots media organisations, Groupe Medialternatif/Alterpresse (http://www.alterpresse.org/) and the Society for the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS - http://www.saks- haiti.org/), along with two networks – the network of women community radio broadcasters (REFRAKA) and the Association of Haitian Community Media (AMEKA), which is comprised of community radio stations located throughout the country.

(END)

[nancyk58]

NEWS in relation to HAITI on 18 October 2010


Danish DR1 TTV: 10 DIED FOLLOWING HEAVY RAINS IN HAITI

Several days of heavy rain cost at least 10 human lives in HAITI which is still struggling to rebuild the country after the devastating earthquake in January 2010.

Among the dead in the capital, Port-au-Prince is a 2-year-old girl and an 11-month-old boy according to the local doctors. The other 8 died as a big sandhill suddenly collapsed and buried them.

3 people living in a tent camp outside Port-au-Prince are missing. The tent camp was established after the January earthquake.

[nancyk58]

Swedish SVT: HAITI: 10 died in FLOODS and MUDSLIDES after 3 days of cloud bursts / heavy rains. Many are still missing in the tent camps. 3 are missing in Port-au-Prince and Carrefour.

The rain is expected to continue according to the meteorologists.

[nancyk58]

HAITI NEWS POSTED ON BBC WORLD NEWS ON 21 OCTOBER 2010

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11599777

21 October 2010 Last updated at 17:53 gmt

HAITI DOCTORS INVESTIGATE OUTBREAK OF DEADLY DISEASE

Reports say about 50 people have died after suffering acute fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. Many more with similar symptoms have been admitted to hospitals north of the capital.

A senior UN health official told the BBC it was not clear what caused the outbreak. Test results are due later.

The country is still suffering the aftermath of January's quake which killed some 250,000 people.

It also left 1.5 million homeless.

An unnamed Haitian health official told AFP news agency the outbreak was CHOLERA but the report could not be confirmed. The government was expected to make an announcement on the outbreak later on Thursday.

'No data'

Jessica Du Plessis, from the UN's humanitarian affairs agency, said the outbreak was centralised on the northern half of Haiti. She told the BBC there were about 300 people showing symptoms in a few hospitals and clinics in that area.

Many of the ill have been taken to a hospital in the town of Saint-Marc, about 100km (60 miles) north of Port-au-Prince, medical officials said.

The Pan American Health Organization (Paho) has sent two teams to the south of the Artibonite department, near Saint-Marc, a doctor with Paho told the BBC.

Little is known of the outbreak beyond "a high incidence of diarrhoea", said Dr Michel Thieren of Paho.

"Nothing can be verified at the moment. We have no numbers, no epidemiological data," he said.

The symptoms could be associated with a number of underlying diseases, he added.

There were fears of a cholera outbreak in the aftermath of the earthquake with many survivors forced into makeshift camps with unsanitary conditions and little access to clean drinking water, but there were no outbreaks, the World Health Organization says.

The Artibonite department was not badly damaged in the earthquake but a number of people who lost their homes took shelter there and many have not left.

Cholera is spread through people consuming water or food contaminated with cholera bacteria. The source of contamination is usually the faeces of infected people.

It causes diarrhoea and vomiting leading to dehydration and can kill quickly if left untreated. It is easily treated though rehydration and antibiotics, however.


Thursday evening 21.10.10 : The DEATH TOLL after the OUTBREAK OF CHOLERA HAS RISEN TO 135. 1,500 HAVE CAUGHT THE DISEASE.

[nancyk58]

NEWS ON 22 OCTOBER 2010 IN RELATION TO HAITI

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11608551
22 October 2010 Last updated at 14:40 GMT

Haiti confirms scores of deaths due to cholera outbreak

Haiti's president and medical officials have confirmed that an outbreak of cholera has killed scores of people north of the capital Port-au-Prince.

The victims suffered diarrhoea, acute fever and vomiting. More than 1,500 people were infected, officials said.

President Rene Preval said his government was taking steps to ensure the disease did not spread further.

There are fears the outbreak could reach the CAMPS around the capital for survivors of January's earthquake.

The quake killed some 250,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Tens of thousands of people are still living in crowded tent cities with poor sanitation and little access to clean drinking water.

Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by bacteria transmitted through contaminated water or food. The source of contamination is usually the faeces of infected people.

It causes diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to severe dehydration, and can kill quickly if left untreated. It is easily treated though rehydration and antibiotics, however.

Hospitals 'overwhelmed'

"I can confirm it is cholera," President Preval told Reuters news agency.

"Now we are making sure people are fully aware of precautionary measures they have to take to prevent contamination".

The director general of the health department, Dr Gabriel Thimote, said the worst-affected areas were Douin, Marchand Dessalines and areas around Saint-Marc, about 100km (60 miles) north of Port-au-Prince.

Local hospitals were "overwhelmed", and a number of people were being evacuated to clinics in other areas, he added.

At one point on Thursday, hundreds of people were laid out in the car park of St Nicholas hospital in Saint-Marc, with intravenous drips in their arms to treat dehydration, until it began to rain and they were rushed inside.

Some patients said they drank water from a public canal, while others said they bought purified water.

"I ran to the bathroom four times last night vomiting," 70-year-old Belismene Jean Baptiste told the Associated Press.

Another man said three of his relatives had died within a matter of hours.

The victims range in age, but the young and the elderly appear to be the worst-affected.

David Darg, a medical relief worker in Haiti, told the BBC he had visited an area near Saint-Marc which - according to local residents - was the source of the outbreak.

"After visiting the hospital and meeting some of the medical staff, they were able to pinpoint where these cases were originating from so we headed out to a very rural area," Mr Darg told the BBC's World Today programme.

He said it was "an area that's popular for RICE production".

"There's a lot of water in that area particularly," added Mr Darg. "We started heading out along narrow roads lined with villagers begging for water, because by now they'd been seeing people dying in their communities and knew not to drink water from the river, which ordinarily would have been their main source of water: they drink water straight from the river."

There were fears of a cholera outbreak in the aftermath of January's earthquake, but none emerged.

This is the first time in a century that cholera has struck the Caribbean nation, the World Health Organization said.

The Artibonite department was not badly damaged in the earthquake but thousands of people who lost their homes have moved into camps or are living with relatives there.

"We have been afraid of this since the earthquake," said Robin Mahfood, president of Food for the Poor.

The agency was preparing to airlift donations of antibiotics, oral dehydration salts and other supplies to the affected areas.


Danish DR1, Swedish SVT, German ARDtext and ZDFtext plus BBC:

An outbreak of cholera has killed at least 138 people in the ARTIBONITE region north of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince.

Claude Surena, President of Haiti's Medical Association told the news agency APF that Haiti's government will soon declare that Haiti is in a HEALTH CRISIS.

BBC News, Live mentioned the outbreak of CHOLERA in HAITI and stressed that CLEAN DRINKING WATER was URGENTLY NEEDED, but could not be provided to all these people in HAITI.

TV2 news 22 o’clock: The outbreak of cholera has now killed 142 people in central Haiti.

[nancyk58]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11643348
28 October 2010 Last updated at 17:53 GMT

AID AGENCIES FEAR HAITI CHOLERA MOVES TOWARDS CAPITAL

Aid agencies in Haiti say they fear that suspected new cases of cholera might mean the epidemic is moving closer to the capital Port-au-Prince.

Suspected cases are being investigated in three new departments, health officials
report.

They said nearly 300 people were now known to have died in the cholera outbreak.

The UN is investigating allegations that excrement from Nepalese peacekeepers caused the epidemic.

The Nepalese camp had become the object of local suspicion partly because cholera is very rare in Haiti but endemic in Nepal.

Tests taken from the peacekeepers' camp and adjacent waters last week were found to be negative, said a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Results from additional tests taken at the base this week were expected on Friday, added the spokesman, Martin Nesirky.

Sarah Jacobs from the aid organisation Save the Children told the BBC that 174 new cases of cholera were being investigated in the area around Arcahaie, a village in the northern Port-au-Prince district and about an hour's drive from the capital.

"These suspected cases are much nearer the capital," Ms Jacobs said.
So if this is actually confirmed as cholera as we suspect it will be, it means that the cholera has spread, it's that much nearer to the capital. And that's the thing we really need to avoid," she added.

So far a handful of cases have been reported in Port-au-Prince, but they were all people who had contracted the disease in other parts of the country.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said health workers were now investigating suspected cholera cases in three more departments - Nord, Nordouest and Nordest - in addition to the confirmed cases in Artibonite, Central and Ouest.

At least 292 people had died and more than 4,100 were being treated, PAHO deputy director Jon Kim Andrus said.

But the official case counts almost certainly underestimated the number of people infected, he added.

"We really don't know about communities where diarrhoea cases are occurring but not reaching health centres", Mr Andrus said.

Officials from the World Health Organisation recommended that Haiti should prepare for the disease to spread to Port-au-Prince and warned that the epidemic had not yet reached its peak.

ACCUSATIONS

On Wednesday, UN investigators took samples of waste from a UN base in Mirebalais after allegations that excrement from a newly arrived Nepalese peacekeeping unit had caused the epidemic.

The Associated Press news agency reported that local politicians blame the outbreak on the base, which is perched above the source of the Meille river, a tributary to the Artibonite river.

The Artibonite river is regarded to be the source of most cholera infections on Haiti's central plateau.

The UN rejected the accusations, and said the Nepalese unit at the base used sealed septic tanks.

The spread of the disease has alarmed locals in the region, who have vented their fears on the doctors who have arrived to help them.

A treatment centre set up by the international medical charity MSF in Saint-Marc was attacked by angry locals, who said they were afraid that the facility would bring more cases of the disease to their town.

UN peacekeepers were drafted in to sort out the disturbance, and no injuries were reported.

Health experts say they expect the outbreak will soon lessen but the disease will eventually join malaria and tuberculosis in becoming endemic in Haiti.

Dominican Republic fears

The public information campaign urges people to boil food and water, avoid raw vegetables and regularly wash with soap.

The health ministry has said it will train 30,000 staff over the next few months to join the anti-cholera campaign.

Special treatment centres have been set up in the worst affected area around the Artibonite River, as well as in Port-au-Prince.

Some 1.3 million survivors of January's devastating earthquake are living in tent camps in and around the capital.

Poor sanitary conditions make the camps and slums vulnerable to cholera, which is caused by bacteria transmitted through contaminated water or food.

Cholera causes diarrhoea and vomiting leading to severe dehydration, and can kill within 24 hours, but is easily treated through rehydration and antibiotics.

The PAHO said there was a "high risk" cholera could also spread to the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Authorities there had closed popular farmers' markets on the border but have now reopened them after establishing sanitary controls in the region, the Dominican Republic's health minister said.


German ARDtext: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: INCREASING NUMBER OF CHOLERA INFECTED PEOPLE

There is a good chance that a major cholera disaster can be prevented according to WHO director Claire Chaignat in Geneva.

The number of deaths due to cholera rose to more than 290 people (292) until Wednesday, and more than 4,100 were infected.


Swedish SVT: WHO: MORE THAN 300 (303) CONFIRMED DEAD DUE TO CHOLERA IN HAITI AND ABOUT 5,000 ARE INFECTED

Most cases are recorded by the Artibonite river more than 10 miles north of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The disease is not spreading in Port-au-Prince and to the tented villages / tent camps where hundred thousands (1.3 million people) are living under difficult conditions since the earthquake disaster in January 2010.


NEWEST FIGURES: 303 confirmed dead of CHOLERA in HAITI according to WHO and about 5000 infected.